Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  Ariel ends up off the worn path through the woods as Zane and his friends drag her deeper into the forest, blanketed by shrubs. Everything is strangely quiet as Zane swings. His ears are ringing, and all he hears is wind and white noise, like he's flying. Soaring, diving back down, impacting the ground, destroying everything.

  Psychology calls it displacement—taking anger caused by one source, and projecting it onto another. At least that's what Liam would say, smart little genius that he is. Zane, however, would say that the feeling of Ariel's cheekbones swelling up under his own bloody knuckles feels better than thinking about what a fucking sick bastard Slate is. Zane is just blind, filled with a white hot rage that's ringing in his ears and pounding in his head, so loud and potent that he doesn't even hear his friends' half-hearted encouragements dying off into hesitant warnings that Zane shouldn't take this too far. There's a fine line between having a little fun and actually killing somebody.

  Every punch is like electricity shooting up Zane's forearm, Ariel's body jolting underneath him with every impact. It's just Zane and Ariel here. There's vibrations in his ears, and above that, there's the sound of her ragged gasps as she tries to breathe through every hit. Zane's knuckles hurt; they ache and throb, but he imagines that Ariel must be in much worse pain. And that thought feels good right now—Zane's seeing Slate underneath him, Slate's nose breaking, Slate's blood. This'll teach that scumbag to ever touch Zane the way he did in that train car.

  He has no idea how long he keeps it up, even going so far as to smack his friend's hands away as they try to reach down and pull him off of Ariel. They don't know what to do. He doesn't know what he's doing.

  And then, Ariel moves.

  Cold slender fingers suddenly come up and wrap around Zane's wrist, and he jerks to a stop. He's breathing hard, eyes burning with rage, but all that disappears when Ariel touches him. It's a loose weak hold, Ariel's hand on his wrist, but it's enough to make him freeze up. Those blurred images of Slate's bloodied face fade from his vision, and Ariel's face reappears below him, completely broken, blood dripping sideways along her cheeks and temples, one eye swollen shut, the other a vivid blue staring up at him in the cold light of the forest.

  Oh, so there's the blue. It's finally come back to combat the red again.

  "Zane...please," Ariel's ragged voice whispers through the blood in her mouth. Her voice is so quiet and weak that Zane almost doesn't hear it. If it weren't for the fact that he is so attuned to everything that is this broken girl beneath him, he doubts he would have caught it. But it's there.

  And Zane realizes...Ariel is fighting back this time, albeit almost uselessly. This is the first time that's ever happened. This is what Zane's wanted all along, some sort of reaction out of this girl, some sort of retaliation or resistance. This is it, this is what he's been waiting for. And it doesn't feel nearly as good or satisfying as he thought it might. Instead it just feels sickening, looking down at that one pleading eye. He sees tears streaking through the blood, and all at once there's a heavy self-loathing sitting painfully in his chest.

  Suddenly, he's not angry anymore.

  Ariel is fighting back. It's small, and subtle, but that hand on Zane's wrist is Ariel defending herself.

  Oh God, what has he done?

  His friends have gone quiet, and there's nothing but Zane's heavy breathing and Ariel's pain-filled choking noises, and the sounds of trees creaking in the icy cold. He needs to get out of here. He can't handle this. He can't look at Ariel this way. He can't look at what he's done to that beautiful face. He suddenly doesn't want to see those tears in her eyes, which is something he thought he wanted all semester since the first time he saw her. He wanted someone else to cry the tears he couldn't shed.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, he needs to get out of here. He can't stay here.

  What the fuck did he do? What the fuck is wrong with him?

  Zane reaches over quickly with his free hand and, surprisingly gently, peels Ariel's fingers away from his wrist, pushing himself to his feet so quickly it's like he was burned. He doesn't even look at his friends, just watches as Ariel rolls onto her side with a pained groan, hugging herself in the fetal position.

  Zane can't stand to look any longer. He turns and walks away quickly, twigs and frozen leaves crunching underfoot, passing Ariel's backpack still laying torn on the dirt path. He hears his friends hesitate before following him, but he really doesn't give a shit about them right now.

  Snowflakes lick at his face as he crashes through the woods, and he realizes he's crying again when the flakes stick to his tear-stained cheeks and melt in the hot drops. Goddammit.

  With shaking hands and chattering teeth, he stumbles through the forest, still drunk from the whiskey and wanting nothing more than to just go to sleep and never wake up. Then he'll never have to face what he just did. He thinks maybe he can sleep now. Maybe he can rest.

  29

  The whitetail deer. Scientifically known as odocoileus virginianus. Native to every continent in the world apart from Australia and Antarctica.

  I suppose it isn't uncommon to see a whitetail deer in the deep forests of Vermont, but it still feels unreal. I lay there on my side, my cheek pressed to the frozen mud, feeling strangely weightless as I stare at it.

  I have no idea how long I've been laying here, how long ago Zane and his friends finally stopped hitting me and left me here in the woods. But the sun is starting to go down. I was cold for a while, but I suppose my skin has gone numb the longer I've been out here laying bloody on the forest floor. There are little snowflakes landing on my pale skin, and they're not melting anymore, at least not right away.

  I don't know what happened. One minute I was walking through the trees, going home, and the next I was on the ground, and Zane was on top of me, hitting me. His eyes looked so green in the winter forest, but they were watering. Zane wasn't in there, not really. I know something happened to him, I know that there's something wrong with him. No sane person attacks this many people in one day.

  But I can't really think about that right now. I can't think about much of anything. Except for the whitetail deer.

  I must have lost consciousness for a little while, because my eyes were closed. But when I opened them, the deer was standing right in front of me. And now it's just there, picking at the ground with its mouth, and the only noises are the sound of its feet on the frozen ground and the trees crackling in the icy chill and my shallow breathing. The deer can't be more than five feet away from me, and I really want to just reach out and touch it. It looks soft, and warm, but I know it will run away if I try to touch it.

  I've been bullied for most of my life. And I fought back once, a long time ago. I don't fight back anymore, not ever, but this one time, I did.

  It was years ago, back when I was going to some middle school in Texas. It was the first time I'd ever been made to bleed by a fellow student. Most of the bullying I'd dealt with throughout my life up until then had been verbal attacks, emotional torment. I'd been hit a few times, pushed around, but nothing like this.

  I don't even remember the bully's name. But I do remember being cornered in the locker room after gym class, and shoved to the ground. And when the girl broke my nose, and I saw my own blood on my hands, I didn't think. I just defended myself.

  I've never been a small girl. I'm not huge, but I'm not small. Maybe my too-big clothes make me look skinnier than I am, but I'm strong. Even in middle school I was strong.

  So it didn't take much to pin that bully down. It was one girl, just one girl who broke my nose and made me angry and hurt. So I hurt the girl back. Hurt her so bad she had to go to the hospital because I broke one of her ribs and it punctured her lung. Hurt her so bad she has a permanent scar across her cheek.

  I hurt someone that badly. I did that, with my own two hands.

  And for a month afterwards, I couldn't sleep. Because every time I closed my eyes I saw that girl crying under me, trying
to breathe with a punctured lung, bleeding from cuts on her face that my hands put there.

  And I vowed to myself, when we moved away from that town in Texas and on to the next destination, that I would never hurt another person again. Even if they are hurting me. I will not inflict that kind of pain on another living soul no matter how much they deserve it. Because it feels horrible, hurting someone like that.

  Only now, I'm laying here bloody and broken on the forest floor, and I think...maybe I should have fought back this time. Because if I'd fought back, maybe I wouldn't still be laying here. Maybe I would be home by now, in a lot less horrible a condition.

  I can't even move.

  My breathing is shallow and nearly inaudible, and so far, the deer doesn't seem to notice that I'm even here. I'm just a dead girl laying on the forest floor watching the sun set and a deer pick at the frozen grass.

  I hear a couple people walk by on the little path through the woods; I think maybe they're students. The deer lifts its head, startled as the people walk by, and I watch as it darts away when the people grow closer. I just lay there, without the ability to even move or speak past a tiny croak in the back of my throat, and listen to them pass me by and continue on their way along the path.

  Zane and his friends must have dragged me somewhere off the main path. I must be hidden in the bushes and trees. No one can see me laying here.

  I'd be scared right now if I wasn't so damn tired. I close my eyes as silence fills the forest once again. I'm actually sort of thankful for how frigid it is out here right now, because I can't feel the pain of the wounds all over my face and torso. Everything is numb, and I've stopped shivering.

  I keep my eyes closed, and an immeasurable amount of time passes.

  When I open my eyes again, it's dark out. I must have fallen asleep for a little while, because the sun has set and everything is purple and gray in the night. I want to check the time, but I can't move, and there's something standing over me. I feel something hot and wet touch my cheek, and I try to angle my eyes upwards to see what it is.

  There's a tiny bit of light left, and when the hot wet thing slides across my cheek again, I realize it's the deer. The whitetail deer is back, and it's licking my face. I think that's nice, actually. The deer is cleaning away all the blood, licking it all away. But at the same time, the tongue hurts against my frozen skin because it's just so hot, like boiling water.

  A tiny groan of pain escapes my throat, and the deer's tongue halts for a moment, pausing at the noise, and then continues to lick. This all feels like a dream, and my dazed half-dead mind considers the possibility that this is Elsa Hartley's ghost in the form of a deer taking care of me. But that's insane, and so am I.

  I just need to move. If I can stand up and get home, then everything will be okay. I focus all my energy on my left arm, forcing myself to move it. I'm not paralyzed. I think maybe I'm just in shock and freezing cold and hurt. But I mange to move my hand a little. And when I do, it startles the deer, and it stops licking my face, darting away.

  That makes me sad. I was beginning to really like that deer.

  I can't move anymore. Moving my hand was exhausting. I'll just rest for a while.

  Breathing shallowly, I let my eyes fall closed again, and I feel myself begin to drift back into unconsciousness. Maybe if I go back to sleep, the deer will come back. Maybe if I go back to sleep, I'll be all better in the morning and I can try to move again. I wonder if this is what it feels like to die.

  And wouldn't that just be ridiculous? Being killed by Zane Peterson.

  Wouldn't that just be ridiculous.

  30

  Buzzing. There's a buzzing in his ear, annoying and insistent. It drags Zane slowly and painfully out of his sleep. His eyes are crusted together when he tries to open them, and he has to reach up and rub away the salt from his tears and sweat so he can see.

  Wow, he actually slept. And from the way his body feels like it's a thousand pounds, he slept a lot. His brain must have been catching up with all the sleep he missed over the weekend since...

  No, Zane will not start his day thinking about what happened at Ghost Town.

  His head is aching, and his stomach is churning with a little bit of nausea, but this time it's not sick-from-thinking-about-Slate nausea. It's good old hangover nausea.

  The buzzing continues and he groans, blinking his eyes open again and crinkling his forehead. There's light streaming through his window, and the sun is high in the winter sky. Zane tries his best to search for the source of the buzzing noise without moving too much, and he spots his cell phone on the floor next to his mattress, dancing across the floorboards every time it vibrates.

  Swallowing back the need to spew, smacking his lips together and grimacing at the taste of whiskey and blood on his tongue, he fumbles, slapping the floor a few times before he manages to grab his phone, squinting at the caller ID. It's Alfred.

  Groaning again, he flips his phone open and presses it to his ear, closing his eyes against the daylight out the window.

  "Yeah?" he greets, his voice like sandpaper.

  "'Yeah'?" Alfred mimics, sounding unamused. "Boy, is that any way to talk to me on a Tuesday afternoon?"

  Zane blinks his eyes open again. "Afternoon?" he croaks. Is it the afternoon? Damn, he must have slept straight through school. Shit.

  He can actually hear Alfred rolling his eyes on the other end. "You're not at school, are ya?" It's not a question.

  Zane swallows dryly and runs his hand over his salty face. "No, I'm sick," he lies, too exhausted to even try to make it sound convincing. Alfred just scoffs on the other end.

  "Save the excuses for your daddy. That ain't the reason I called," he says.

  Zane squints up at the clock on his wall. It's already almost one. Crap. "What's up?"

  He hears Alfred shuffling around on the other end, probably at the craft shop doing paperwork. "You heard from your girl Ariel? She was supposed to come in to work last night and never showed up."

  Zane yawns, only half-listening, still exhausted. Three days of no sleep will do that to you, he supposes. "My girl? Alfred, Ariel isn't my girl."

  "Ah hell, you know I didn't mean it like that," Alfred snorts. "But you kids are friends, ain't ya?"

  Zane buries his face in his pillow, yawning again, ready to go back to sleep. His head is pounding. "No," he replies in the middle of his yawn. "No, not really. We just bump shoulders in the halls sometimes. I don't really know the girl."

  Alfred hums on the other end. "I thought you guys said you were friends," he mutters. "Oh well, never mind I guess. We'll just see if she shows up tonight. Call me if ya see her?"

  Zane mumbles some sort of affirmative, and he thinks he hears Alfred mutter something along the lines of "lazy idiot" before they farewell each other and Zane snaps his phone closed, tossing it aside on the floor. He rolls over, finding the best position that keeps pressure off his nauseous stomach and pulls the blanket up to his nose.

  He's almost asleep, dancing on the edge, when suddenly the conversation sinks in. Ariel didn't show up for work last night. Ariel never misses work.

  Abruptly, the events of yesterday afternoon come flooding back to him. He remembers being so angry he couldn't see straight. He remembers craving blood. He remembers getting drunk on Glencraig. He remembers jumping on Ariel in the forest, and then...

  Zane's eyes snap open, and he sits up so quickly his head spins and he has to hold onto the wall for support so he doesn't fall back into his pillow again. His stomach protests angrily, and he feels bile in the back of his throat. Shit! He scrambles out of bed, stumbling and throwing open his bedroom door, running down the hall to the bathroom and throwing the toilet seat up just in time, vomiting his guts out. God, he's getting tired of vomiting these past several days. At least this time it's because of a hangover, and not because of...

  No. No, he won't think about that. Not again. Look where thinking about Slate has got
ten him.

  Oh God...Ariel.

  Ariel didn't show up for work last night. She didn't show up for work last night. A girl like Ariel doesn't just miss work, or blow it off. She doesn't.

  Oh God.

  Zane rinses his mouth out quickly, his head aching steadily, and he runs back into his room. It doesn't look like Mike or Liam are home, which is a good thing. He doesn't want to have to explain why he's suddenly panicking. At least he doesn't feel overwhelmingly mad anymore like he's been feeling for the past few days.

  No, Zane supposes all he really needed to cure his anger was to drunkenly attack Ariel Riley, a girl, and beat her half to death. Shit.

  He runs into his room and grabs his coat, throwing on his boots, not even bothering with socks because his heart is racing and his mind is screaming shit shit shit at him. What if Ariel is still out in the woods? What if she never made it home? Zane doesn't remember much about yesterday apart from a blur of anger and drunkenness and hitting a lot of people. One of those people was Ariel, and he distinctly remembers hitting her...a lot. Hitting her so much that she had actually defended herself, however weakly. And then he remembers getting up and leaving her there bloody and beaten on the forest floor.

  What if Ariel never got up? What if she's dead? Zane doesn't think he can live with himself if he killed someone like Ariel.

  No. He won't get ahead of himself here. Maybe she just forgot about work. Maybe this is all a big overreaction. Maybe she's fine and sitting in math class right now where he's supposed to be.

  But Zane has this horrible, heavy feeling in his gut that, no, Ariel is not in math class, and no, Ariel is not okay.

  Shit.

  Zane doesn't even bother locking the door as he runs out of the house and towards the woods. The neighbor lady with the seventeen yapping dogs and the garden of rotting (now frozen) squash is peering out her window at him, but he doesn't even pay her any mind. All that woman does is look. She never does anything. Maybe she's a ghost. It would make sense in an end-of-the-earth town like this, forgotten of and tucked away in the middle of the Vermont forest.